


Good Answer

by trash4ficsaboutlurv



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:11:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7192865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash4ficsaboutlurv/pseuds/trash4ficsaboutlurv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Avengers are trying to work on their public image with some much needed transparency, but the phrase 'PR nightmare' has different meanings for Sam and Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Answer

When Sam comes home from his morning run, Steve is already gone. Sam takes his phone out and shoots Steve a text:  _Take lots of deep breaths, babe. Good luck._ The interview isn’t until the second half of the  _Hello, USA!_ show, so hopefully Steve is relaxing backstage with Fury, Natasha, and Rhodey. Rhodey has promised he’ll keep Steve from getting too antsy. Steve still hates these interviews.

Fury, Rhodey, Nat, and Steve did a  _60 Minutes_  interview last week and Steve had looked completely miserable, even with most of the questions going to the others. The interview had been an in-depth exposé about the fall of SHIELD, how Fury had faked his death to carry on the war against HYDRA, about Nat’s pre and post SHIELD involvement in world security, and how the government (with Rhodey as the Avengers-American government liaison) was still trying to figure out its role with the Avengers, post-SHIELD. Honestly, Steve was asked only a few fact-based questions about how he learned about HYDRA and whether it was true that he was tracking down HYDRA bases even two years after knocking the hellicarriers out of the sky. Steve had fidgeted, grimaced, and sweated through all sixty minutes and then refused to take the train to DC back with Rhodey, opting instead to run the whole 250 miles from New York City.

This initiative had been a collaborative idea from members of the Avengers team, but Rhodey and Nat credit Sam with planting the seed—and Sam is more than happy to take credit if the thing doesn’t blow up in their faces. With so many countries grumbling about their sovereignty and dozens of websites cropping up every day questioning the motives and intentions of a group of superpowered humans with little oversight, Sam had suggested some transparency wouldn’t be a bad thing. Tony had balked at the idea of any more hearings and Fury had just about been ready to disown Sam altogether for giving out intel, but once he explained that he meant more transparency to the public where the public actually was – social media, TV, magazines – everyone slowly got on board. He’d explained that it was dangerous for them to ignore the criticisms being leveled against them, especially in light of all the agitation against the police and military. If the Avengers couldn’t be open about their mission and protocols, eventually everyone was going to hate them.

Steve hadn’t liked Sam’s idea one bit and it had been their first married fight. Steve called it a PR stunt that made them out to be celebrities instead of soldiers.

“We’re already celebrities, whether we want it or not,” Sam pointed out. “You more than most of us.”

“I didn’t ask for that. I’m trying to make the world safe. I don’t want to go back to being a dancing monkey.”

They had argued for almost an hour before Sam shook his head and bowed out of the fight. “Everyone else is on board. You can be stubborn about this all you want; it’s happening.”

They had been delicate with each other over the next week or so, neither of them wanting to apologize because neither of them thought he was wrong. When  _People_ magazine put Wanda on the cover a few weeks later, Steve had scowled in the grocery store line so venomously, the check-out girl had looked between Sam and Steve with frank curiosity. Sam had grabbed the magazine and added it to their pile of groceries and Steve muttered, “I’m not paying for that,” and stalked outside to wait for Sam in the car. Sam had a much better hold on his temper since he came back from Afghanistan and went to therapy, but even Dr. Rhee would have forgiven Sam’s flare of anger at his idiot husband. They didn’t talk all the way home and while Steve watched the news that night, Sam very pointedly read Wanda’s interview in Steve’s line of sight.

The next time the whole team was together, Sam brought the article up with Wanda and she beamed, looking every bit as young as she was. “It was so nice,” she gushed, “to finally have a place to tell people who I am. They all see this powerful witch and they’re scared of me. But I got to tell them why they shouldn’t be afraid.”

Sam nodded, glanced over at Steve to see if he was listening.

“I didn’t know you were Jewish,” he said to Wanda.

“Yeah, I’ve gotten so many emails and letters from Jewish girls and from other mutants. It’s been very good to be more public about ourselves. I'm happy that people are less afraid of me.”

Sam pulled Wanda into a hug. “Me too, kid.”

That night, Steve had heaved the biggest sigh a man could heave and apologized to Sam.

“It’s cool," Sam said. "I’m sorry if I was short with you about all this. It’s just, you’re a beautiful white guy. People give you the benefit of the doubt all the time. They don’t give it to Wanda and Nat, definitely not to Fury. Hell, even Thor gets a little side-eye because he’s not human. We can’t just go out and do the right thing and expect the public to know we’re not a bunch of terrifying vigilantes. They might trust you and Tony because you’ve both got that white guy privilege, but they sure as hell aren’t going to trust the rest of us, if we don’t give them plenty of reason to do it.”

Steve nodded. “I was being selfish.”

“And arrogant,” Sam added, but softened the chastising with a kiss to Steve’s temple. Steve’s eyes fluttered closed and his lips parted. Sam and Steve hadn’t exactly been having a sex life since this argument started and apparently even a chaste kiss was enough to get them back on track.

Sam pressed his lips to Steve’s and the tingle of it was like magic. Steve pulled Sam into his lap and proceeded to apologize with his whole body, slowly, sweetly, until every ounce of pleasure had been wrung from both of them and they were lying on their damp sheets staring up at the ceiling, breathing in tandem.

“I’m still not doing any tabloid interviews,” Steve said.

“Only the serious stuff for Mr. Steve Rogers.”

Which was how this had all come about: Steve, Fury, Rhodey, and Nat on the  _Hello, USA!_ show as a follow-up to the  _60 Minutes_  interview. This one is supposed to be more relaxed and personable, less of an interrogation.

Sam turns on the TV and grabs a carton of orange juice from the fridge. The show has already started, but it’s just fluffy news pieces at the start. Sam sips his juice and watches the show, embarrassingly touched by a segment on an elephant who has a turtle for a best friend.  When Dorinda Sanchez says, “And next up, we’ll be talking to some of Earth’s Mighty Heroes,” the camera pans to Steve and the others backstage. Rhodey and Fury both nod at the camera, calm and dignified. Natasha smirks and looks away. Steve does a half-hearted salute and smile, and Sam can tell he’s probably sweating through his t-shirt and jacket.

 Sam turns the volume up when the show comes back from commercial, his eyes trained on Steve. To anyone who doesn’t know him, Steve probably looks a little uptight, maybe on account of being a soldier and all. But Sam knows Steve and he is a man under siege right now, hunkered down in his chair like he can somehow make himself smaller.

Dorinda Sanchez does the introductions for everyone and the live audience goes nuts for all of them. Rhodey even has some chanters screaming “War Machine! War Machine!” Steve definitely gets the loudest cheers and he musters a close-lipped smile for them. Dorinda starts with Fury, asking him what the hardest part of coming back from faking his own death was.

Fury smiles. “Came back from the dead and they’d gone and discontinued my favorite trench coat,” he says.

The crowd laughs.

“Speaking of fashion,” Dorinda says, turning to face Steve, “Captain America has had a few different uniform changes recently. Which would you say was your favorite?”

Steve tilts his head. “I’m a big fan of the first suit, you know? For the nostalgia factor. But I really like the stealth suit, which unfortunately, the public hasn’t seen or I wouldn’t be doing a good job of being stealthy.”

Sam grins, proud of Steve’s ability to be light-hearted and sweet.

Dorinda moves on to asking Natasha to read one of the fan letters she’s received from a little girl who wants to be a ballerina.

Steve looks more relaxed the longer Dorinda goes without asking him a question. Sam even starts to get into the interview. Who knew Rhodey could be such a charmer? He has Dorinda flustered and blushing every time he answers one of her questions and Sam’s half in love with him by the time they go to commercial break. Sam takes a deep breath. The show’s over in ten minutes. Steve has to make it through ten minutes and he’ll be fine. He’s doing great.

“And welcome back to the show,” Dorinda says a few minutes later. “Where we have some familiar faces, Natasha Romanoff, Nicolas Fury, Colonel James Rhodey, and Captain America!”

Steve flinches and Sam can guess why, but Steve recovers quickly and smiles into the camera when it does a close-up.

“Alright, I’ve asked everyone else, Steve, what the hardest part of being a hero is. And we’ve all heard your story. It’s definitely been a bittersweet ride for you. What would you say has been the biggest adjustment that Captain America has had to make since you came off the ice?”

Sam winces. This is not Steve’s favorite conversation and it’s certainly not something he’s going to want to talk about on national television. And it’s pretty clear Dorinda is having a hard time with seeing him as Steve Rogers instead of captain America. A flush blooms on Steve’s cheeks and he looks like someone’s got a gun on him. Sam can see the tell-tale signs that Steve’s about to have an anxiety attack, the way his hand is clenching into a fist and he’s blinking fast, his chest rising and falling hard.

“Um,” he says and his voice cracks. He coughs and looks down at his feet, the blush on his face turning darker and spreading fast. “I-um—.”

“Steve will never admit this,” Rhodey jumps in, “but he told me the other day he still can’t figure out the digital drink machines. You know the ones with the computer screen and all. Can’t figure them out to save his star-spangled behind.”

“Is that so, Cap?” Dorinda asks, smiling.

“Yeah,” Steve huffs. “Still trying to get up to speed on fountain drink technology.” His smile is so forced and sad, Sam wants to climb through the TV and take him in his arms.

Natasha laughs and the camera pulls away from Steve to focus on her.

Sam is already on the phone, dialing Steve’s number to leave him a comforting voicemail. “Hey, babe,” he says after the beep. “You looked great up there. It’s okay to be shaky. Come on home. I’m making you crepes.”

 

“Hey,” Sam calls from the kitchen when he hears the front door close and Steve’s keys jangle into the bowl on the foyer table--the glass bowl that Sam’s sister made a few years ago when she thought she was going to be a glass blower (that was between her dreams of being a hedge witch and a Etsy candle maker).

It’s a misshapen mess of glass that looks a little like a piece of old, Greek pottery that was flash frozen while in the middle of melting. Sarah had given it to Sam the Christmas after he came back from Afghanistan and she’d looked so anxious that he like it that he burst out laughing and said, “Sarah, it’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. Thank you!” And she’d heard his sincerity, launched across the sofa, and hugged him so hard he’d felt his internal organs trying to make room for her bony arms and elbows. She liked to say that her glass bowl (bowl was the compromise word they’d reached between disaster and art) was the catalyst for Sam’s coming back out of his shell after Riley died. Sam liked to say he’d been forced to leave his dank, gloomy, depressed shell just to make sure she could never inflict a glass bowl on some unsuspecting innocent.

The first time Steve had come over to Sam’s (sans government agency trying to kill him), he’d looked at the bowl and scrunched his nose, but when he saw that Sam had noticed, he blushed and said, “Is this modern art?” all golly-gee-gosh beautiful about it and Sam couldn’t resist an opportunity and he’d said it was actually a very famous piece by Sarah—a glass blower so incredible she only went by her first name—and Steve had wrinkled his nose again and said “It’s very nice,” the way kids lie to their grandmothers and say they love the black licorice, thank you very much. Sam still hasn’t told him that the bowl is his sister’s monstrous creation, and sometimes he catches Steve shaking his head at it as he leaves the house.

Sam is sitting on a stool in front of the stove, reading a biography of Thurgood Marshall, between flipping crepes and eating spoonfuls of hazelnut chocolate spread. He sets the book face down on the counter when Steve leans against the kitchen entryway. Steve’s hair is standing up like he’s run his fingers through it in frustration a few times on the way home.

“Did you watch?” Steve asks. He shrugs out of his leather bomber jacket (a gift from Natasha and Sharon that costs more than Sam’s rent) and tosses it towards the living room, where it probably lands perfectly on the back of the sofa. His t-shirt underneath, which you couldn’t see clearly in any of the shots on  _Hello, USA!_  is actually a Falcon t-shirt (Sam’s mama bought out the whole stock in Harlem and sent them as birthday, wedding, anniversary, Christmas, and Arbor Day gifts to everyone. She is very, vocally proud of Sam)

“I saw it,” Sam says. “Left you a voicemail.” He flicks his wrist and the crepe lands perfectly in the pan. He tilts the pan slightly so Steve can see the golden brown pastry.

Steve nods, his smile as intransigent as a snowflake on the skin.

“I didn’t hear it yet. I, uh, panicked,” he says. His lip trembles and he looks down at his shoes. He shoves his hands in his pockets.  

Sam sets the pan on the stove. “It was an invasive question,” he acknowledges, silently debating whether to stay here on the stool or to go to Steve (which is his instinct; which is  _always_ his instinct—to go to the person in pain). “I understand why you’d panic.”

Steve nods and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Yeah,” he says. He tries to look up at Sam, but barely makes eye contact before wincing and turning back toward the living room. Sam has talked to enough vets on the verge of tears who  _really_ don’t want to be on the verge of tears that he understands why Steve walks away and more importantly, he lets him.

“Go change into something comfy,” he calls to Steve’s retreating back. “I think those sweats you like are in the dryer. We’re gonna eat crepes and watch  _Bad Boys_ 1 and 2.”

“Okay,” Steve answers.

Sam peeks at the underside of the crepe in the pan. It’s a goner for sure. He dumps it and wipes out the pan to start on another one.

Giving Steve space to have his feelings in private requires a lot of restraint on Sam’s part, not least because all his degrees tell him he’s qualified to fix Steve’s pain. But it’s really just who Sam is, at his very core. If a person is in pain, Sam is there with a splint, an ice pack, a kind word, his wings to drag them out of enemy territory, whatever it takes. But he also knows that not every kind of ache requires smothering attention. When he came back from Afghanistan, for example, he’d almost killed his brother Gideon after one too many unannounced, way too prolonged visits.

And Steve normally requires a thawing period after one of his anxiety attacks, anyway, just a little time on his own. Sam has to respect that, has to be okay with spreading Nutella on crepes when he’d rather be rolling Steve into a blanket like a little sad taco and spoon-feeding him comfort foods and comedies and maybe a sad movie for the catharsis and then a couple more comedies for the laugh therapy. But that isn’t how Steve copes, so Sam can’t force that kind of healing on him.

When Sam had complained to Rhodey about how Steve needed space when he was upset and how it made Sam feel helpless, Rhodey had pointed out that feeling helpless was kind of a selfish response to another person’s hurt – a re-centering of the problem away from the person in pain back to Sam – but he’d managed to say it in a way that didn’t make Sam feel like an asshole. Plus, Rhodey had grinned (Rhodey has a beautiful smile when he isn’t being the judgy Mom Friend™) and said, “If I’m ever feeling down, you can roll  _me_  into a sad blanket burrito” to which Sam had said, “Don’t play with me, Rhodey. I’m gonna have my mom start working on your quilt. This is serious to me,” and Rhodey had said, “I mean it, Sam. Promise.” (Sam’s mama had initially refused to make the quilt because she had mixed up War Machine and Iron Man and she didn’t want to make a quilt for that ‘godless rich playboy to have sex with all his groupies’. After Sam had tried – and failed – to convince his mama that Tony was alright, she’d been more than happy to make a quilt for Rhodey, who she said ‘probably puts up with a lot of white nonsense dealing with the government and that Tony’ (Tony said in the same tone one might say horse shit). Sam hasn’t gotten around to giving the blanket to Rhodey, but it’s a masterpiece of gray and blue with the Air Force colonel insignia done up in silver thread in the corner squares. Darlene Wilson goes All Out™ for Sam’s friends.)

Steve comes back into the kitchen about half an hour later. Sam has made dozens of paper thin crepes smeared in Nutella and sprinkled with sliced strawberries. Steve walks in barefoot and bare-chested in his (Sam’s) favorite sweatpants that are barely clinging to his hipbones.

“What’s up, Magic Mike?” Sam says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“I couldn’t find my shirt—the, um, the green one—long sleeves?”

“I think it’s in the hamper behind the door,” Sam says, ogling Steve like a horny teenager, “but – you know – by all means, the Magic Mike thing works for me.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Pervert.” He opens the cabinets to pull down plates.

“Did anyone call Michelangelo a pervert when he sculpted David?”

“Probably.”

“I am just appreciating the human form, Steve.” Sam plated the crepes and grabbed the can of whipped cream out of the fridge. “And how is this human feeling? Better?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah.” He looks down at the tile. “Thanks, Sam.”

“Haven’t done anything,” he says, scooting past Steve to go into the living room. Steve catches his arm and presses a kiss to his temple.

“I’m just thankful for you, you idiot.”

“Such a charmer,” Sam teases.

 

They’ve learned through trial and error that the best way to get Steve to open up is if he doesn’t have to be looked at. So, after a couple hours of therapeutic action movies, Sam spreads some towels on their bed and makes Steve lie down on his stomach.

Sam straddles Steve’s hips and says, “I think I owe you an apology.”

“Hmmm?”

“I didn’t really see your side when you were saying you didn’t want to do this publicity stuff until today.”

“I thought we agreed you were right.”

“I  _was_ right,” Sam says, “but I didn’t think about how hard it was going to be for you.”

“Yeah, well,” Steve says, shrugging. “Bucky and Banner have it much worse in those interview things and they do just fine.”

“ _You_ did just fine,” Sam assures him. “It’s okay that you got a little shaky up there. Doesn’t mean you’re not coping.” He runs his hands over Steve’s arms.

“I know.” Steve says. “I still felt kinda dumb. It wasn’t even that she was asking me about the ice.”

“Really?” Sam asks, digging the heels of his palms into Steve’s shoulders.

“I was more worried that I was  _going_  to have a panic attack so I started panicking about panicking and…” He shrugs.

“Yeah, that’s scary.”

“There was this voice in my head saying,  _You’re Captain America to these people. Captain America doesn’t have mental illness. Especially not on national television._ ”

“That voice is a little fuckhead,” Sam says with a lot of feeling.

“Yeah, but he’s a pretty compelling fuckhead.”

“If you could have answered honestly, what would you have said? Do you know?”

Steve nods and exhales loudly. He takes so long to answer that Sam’s decided he’s not going to. He leans over to grab the massage oil, content to leave questioning for another time.

“The hardest part about being Captain America?” Steve says. “Captain America is this well-meaning murderer inside my head and he’d like nothing more than to kill Steve Rogers for ‘the greater good.’”

Sam whistles. “That’s dark, baby.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, “couldn’t say that on national TV.”

“Especially not on a morning show.”

“I had to think of the children.”

Sam can hear the smile in Steve’s voice. He leans forward and kisses the crown of his head and Steve’s feathery soft hair tickles his chin. “I’d choose Steve Rogers over this Captain America guy any day. In fact, I’m kinda in love with Steve Rogers and if Captain America is trying to murder Steve Rogers for the greater good, we might just have to exorcise the bastard.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Steve murmurs.

“I mean it,” Sam says. “We gotta get you to the place where you don’t feel obligated to be Captain America. And I think that’s something you should do in therapy. But something  _I_ can do as your husband and non-therapist is show you how much I like Steve Rogers. When he’s smiling, when he’s having a panic attack, when he’s sad, when he’s singing off-key, when he’s fucking me, when I’m fucking him.” He unclicks the cap on the massage oil and pours a generous portion into his palm. “So, in the interest of tending to Steve, who I love, I’m curious, what’s the  _best_  thing about being Steve Rogers?”

“Hmm,” Steve considers, “It’s kinda superficial.”

“Yeah?” Sam encourages.

“Well, I woke up in the 21st century and got to see the future, and it has its problems, but there’s a lot of good stuff like Nutella and solar energy and the civil rights movements and I didn’t have to live through the seventies, which looked terrible, or wait for Beyoncé to strike out on her solo career, which has been amazing.”

“You were supposed to say  _I_ was the best thing,” Sam teases.

Steve turns his head and says very seriously, “Sam, you’re the very hardest part of being Steve. Do you know how difficult it is to have such a good-looking, wise-beyond-his-years, crepe-cooking, massage-giving king as a husband? It’s quite humbling, you know.”

Sam rolls his eyes and smacks Steve’s ass, leaving an oily handprint on the towel.

In a thrilling display of speed and agility, Steve manages – in one seamless motion – to roll onto his back without displacing Sam. He brings Sam’s oiled hands to his lips and presses a kiss to his fingertips, his palms, his wrists.

Sam shivers. “Good answer, babe.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be longer and more thought-out, but I got lazy/distracted and rush-wrote it. Anyhow, come talk to me on my [tumblr](http://samuelwilson-rogers.tumblr.com) about Sam and Steve


End file.
